NEWS
A Christmas hamper will be raffled at the Service of Carols and Readings on 21stDecember. Donations of suitable foodstuffs and drinks for the hamper would be much appreciated. Please liaise with Diana if you would like to contribute.
The church was beautifully decorated with poppies, real and knitted (photo, front cover), for Remembrance Sunday. At morning service Neville Smith read the names of the Barsham and Shipmeadow men lost in the First World War, and the names of the American airmen killed in the Second World War when their B-24 Liberator bombers crashed, one in Barsham and one in Shipmeadow. The Two-Minute Silence was observed at 11:00am, followed by the National Anthem.
A congregation of 28 people attended the Service of Remembrance at Barsham Village Hall on Saturday 11th November. The service was led by the Revd Josh, whose introduction to Remembrance was followed by the reading of names by Zane Blanchard, Peter Holmes and Neville Smith. The Two-Minute silence was observed at 11:00am, with the Last Post and Reveille played by a trumpeter from the Sir John Leman High School. Wreaths were then laid at the village war memorial and refreshments were available in the village hall afterwards.
The PCC met for routine business on Monday 13th November and on Wednesday 22ndNovember the PCC will be holding the annual ‘Clergy Lunch’ as a means of expressing the appreciation of our entire congregation for the greatly valued service of our volunteer clergy, John Fellows and Jonathan Olanczuk.
Warm thanks to everyone who filled Love Boxes. With the Beccles Red Hat Ladies, we donated 134 boxes: a record number. Special thanks to Chris and Carolyn, for their hard work in organising and running this project so successfully this year.
Including the items presented at Harvest Festival, we donated a fine total of 284 items to the Foodbank in October. In her letter ahead of Christmas, the Revd Pam Bayliss of the Beccles Foodbank writes: ‘As always please would you thank your church for the donations which you so faithfully send in each week’. She goes on to explain the Foodbank Christmas plan: ‘This year we aim to fill socks! The idea is to take a pair of new socks, roll one sock up and put it in the toe of the other. Then fill the sock with small items, eg sweets, packets of tissues, small sachets of shampoo, shower gel, toothpaste and brushes, pens, chocolate money, small toys etc. Whatever your imagination takes you! The completed socks need to be labelled ‘man’, ‘lady’, ‘girl’ or ‘boy’. We will of course also be collecting sweets, mince pies, chocolates, selection boxes, puddings etc.’
The monthly sales table raised a useful £50.00.
Barsham PCC acknowledges with gratitude donations of £200.00 in memory of the late Peter Wittey.
Many thanks to Doreen Springall whose Farm Gate Produce Stall this year raised a magnificent £391.00 for church funds.
FORWARD PLANNING
The Service of Carols & Readings will be on Thursday 21st December at 6.30pm.Mulled wine, mince pies and sausage rolls will be served after the service.
There will be a service of Sung Eucharist at 10.30am on Christmas Day (no refreshments after the service).
A Message from the Revd Josh Bailey for Advent
“But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father. Take ye heed, watch and pray: for ye know not when the time is.” (Mark 13:32-33)
Hopefully, even if Advent Calendars have been purchased, they have yet to be opened. This last expression of the cultural salience of Advent does manage to retain a little, if not much, of the traditional purpose of the season. Advent means ‘coming’, appearing; the Greek word is παρουσια (parousia). It is a coming that changes everything; long anticipated; immediately transformative.
Jesus says something so surprising in the above passage that it seems some manuscripts assumed it was a typo and removed the offending word. Contrary to our assumption that Jesus’ divinity equates to omniscience, Jesus calmly tells His disciples that He does not know the date of His return.
This gives still more force to His ensuing command. The certainty of His arrival combined with the unknowability of its day or hour creates an indefinite need for attentiveness. He is happy to entrust the specifics to His Father, but promises to continually be praying for and empowering us until that day dawns.
The reason for this combination of trust and attentiveness is entirely contained within the event itself. Only two hundred to three hundred years ago, Christians had a radically different view of history. It still appears occasionally in modern accounts. On this understanding, events in the past only become understandable on the basis of what future realities they contribute towards. An otherwise random political assassination in Sarajevo on this reading becomes what we all now understand it to be: the spark which ignited the First World War.
Viewing past events as in some sense determined by their consequences is frequently rejected as bad history: ‘Whiggish’ history. People in the past did not know about the consequences of their actions 50 years hence. One thoroughly modern analysis of history is that it is the catalogue of unintended consequences.
But with Advent, Jesus weans us away from this human-centred, ultimately meaningless view of history. He tells us to keep watch for the ultimate future which will turn even the smallest details of our daily experience as His Church into deeply poignant steps towards the redemption of the cosmos. We cannot hope to truly discern pattern in the apparent chaos of personal and world events until the day and hour known to no-one but the Jesus’ Father.
Advent is an opportunity to gaze forwards and backwards with the eyes of faith. We trust that all the events of our life and the history of the world will be clothed with glory through Jesus’ glorious appearing. We also trust that the uncertainty of date has no effect whatsoever on the certainty of the event itself.
One way we will be attempting to express this as a Benefice is to approach Advent as a fasting time. Everyone is free to understand this how they wish, though one pattern that may be helpful for some is having one day in the week where we don’t eat until 3pm and avoiding meat and dairy on Wednesdays and Fridays. The reason to do this is that every time we are reminded that we would like whatever food it is, we use this as a prompt to thankfulness and prayer.
DECEMBER DIARY
Sunday 3rd December – First Sunday of Advent. 11am Sung Eucharist (BCP). RevdJonathan Olanczuk.
Sunday 10th December – Second Sunday of Advent. 11am Sung Eucharist (BCP). Revd Canon John Fellows.
Sunday 17th December – Third Sunday of Advent. 11am Sung Eucharist (BCP). Revd Josh Bailey.
Thursday 21st December – Service of Carols and Readings at 6.30pm. Revd Josh Bailey.
Sunday 24th December – Fourth Sunday of Advent, Christmas Eve. 11am Sung Eucharist (BCP). Revd Canon John Fellows.
Christmas Day, Monday 25th December – Sung Eucharist at 10.30am. Revd Josh Bailey.
Sunday 31st December – First Sunday after Christmas. 11am Sung Eucharist (BCP). Revd Jonathan Olanczuk.
Wednesdays at 8.45am – Matins at Barsham (except 27th December).
Church correspondent: Robert Bacon 07867 306016, [email protected]